I've been entertaining myself lately by reverse engineering Cryo's Dune. I've got all graphics resources (videos, sprites, rooms) decoded, and I have recreated most of the intro (which exercises a good deal of engine).
It should be pixel accurate to the in-game one, although I haven't validated it lately.
It's very slow going though. The original game was coded in highly optimized idiosyncratic 8086 assembly. It's difficult to read, much more so than compiler-generated machine code from the same era.
This was my first introduction to Dune. In 93 I was in 3rd grade and this game blew me away. The weird politics and characters. The desert sands and worms. The flying ornithopters and sietches and Fremen.
I never made it too far in to the game, I would always get lost with some of the strategy in trying to mine spice or I would drink the water of life and die or lose fighting the Harkonen.
More than anything I loved it for it’s world building, atmosphere and exploration of a strange world.
This game has aged very well. You can pick it up for next to nothing on GOG. Highly recommended. The game is not very hard but you will likely have to start over a few times before you get the hang of it. This is normal. Dune is best without spoilers, so maybe skip the video.
There are some rights issues that prevent them from coming out anywhere if I remember correctly. One of those deadlocked cases it seems. And involved parties didn't care about working things out.
Dune 2 was my first computer game. I played it as a child with my dad when we lived in China. Later, we'd play Dune 2000, Red Alert 2, and eventually Starcraft (all pirated of course). I wasted a huge amount of time but at least it helped instill in me a passion for computers.
Starcraft turned into Warcraft into Dota, and now I have 5000 hours in Dota 2. I often wonder what I could've accomplished if I hadn't been swallowed up by video games!
Video games were the reason I started my first business. A dialup ISP that we later sold to a telco for a good profit. It was fun and amazing. I wanted a low ping time for Quakeworld and to macro my character in Ultima Online. Such great memories.
Truly. The games from French publisher Ere / Exxos in particular were deeply steeped in experimental science fiction of the Heavy Metal magazine sort, and led to legendary games like Captain Blood, Kult, Another World and Dune. It all feels a lot blander now, although it may also be age talking.
I hope LGR will someday make a retrospective on Emperor: Battle for Dune, the last Dune game from Westwood and one of the earliest 3D RTS. It’s not available on any digital stores but you can find a repack on My Abandonware that works on modern systems.
Many people love the second game, but I was never into Real-Time Strategy so I couldn't get into it. I actually liked the first one a lot better, a mix of light strategy and adventure.
I also made an interactive Dune globe renderer (in WASM and Rust!): https://thomas.fach-pedersen.net/dune/globe/
It should be pixel accurate to the in-game one, although I haven't validated it lately.
It's very slow going though. The original game was coded in highly optimized idiosyncratic 8086 assembly. It's difficult to read, much more so than compiler-generated machine code from the same era.